Menedemos gave back a bland smile. “Spearing them is more fun.” That was slang, too, of an obvious sort.

Sostratos snorted. Philodemos rolled his eyes. He said, “Joke all you want about adultery now, but it’s landed you in more trouble than anybody since Paris ran off with Helen.”

That wasn’t fair. Menedemos’ father undoubtedly knew it wasn’t fair. But it held enough truth to make it sting. Menedemos did make a hobby of seducing other men’s wives, and he had found himself in trouble because of it. Trying to forestall any more of Philodemos’ wit, he said, “Well, we won’t stop in Halikarnassos on the way to Athens.”

There was a husband in Halikarnassos who would kill him on sight-who almost had killed him a few years before. Menedemos hoped the fellow had perished when Ptolemaios laid siege to the city a couple of years before. He wished it had fallen and been sacked, but no such luck. Antigonos’ older son, Demetrios, had quick-marched an army up from the southeast and relieved it.

Philodemos surely would have brought up Halikarnassos if he hadn’t. Even though he had, his father leaped on it: “A terrible thing, when our firm can’t do business in a polis because you outraged the wife of one of the leading citizens.”

“She wasn’t outraged, by Zeus,” Menedemos said. “She loved every minute of it. Her husband, on the other hand…”

“No point in quarreling about it now.” Sostratos did his best to make peace. “We can’t change it. It’s over. It’s done. No man can step into the same river twice.”

That was a philosophical tagline; Menedemos knew as much, even if he’d had less education than his cousin. If Philodemos knew, he didn’t care. “I want to keep him from jumping into this river of adultery again,” he said. Then he pointed at Sostratos. “And you, too, as a matter of fact.”